3pm update

Former Khmer Rouge official charged by tribunal

A Cambodian student looks at photographs of Khmer Rouge victims at the genocide museum in Phnom Penh. Photograph: Mak Remissa/EPA

The man who ran one of Cambodia's most notorious prisons under the Khmer Rouge was today charged with crimes against humanity by a UN-backed tribunal.

Kaing Guek Eav, 64, better known as Duch, was the Khmer Rouge government's chief interrogator and ran the Toul Sleng S-21 prison, where 14,000 inmates died as a result of torture, disease and executions. Just seven of those who entered the former school compound re-emerged alive.

Duch, who is the first former Khmer Rouge official to be charged, was taken at dawn from his cell at the military detention centre where he has been held for eight years to the tribunal's specially built headquarters on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

A statement issued by the investigating judges said Duch had been placed in "provisional detention" after being charged.

The tribunal's prosecutors submitted charges against five of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's henchmen to the investigating judges two weeks ago. The file on Duch was among them. So far he is the only one who has been named.

It is widely thought that Noun Chea, the communist movement's chief ideologue known as "brother number two", Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister, Khieu Samphan, the nominal head of state, and Meas Muth, Pol Pot's son-in-law, are among the other suspects. All live freely in Cambodia.

Pol Pot, "brother number one", died in 1998 in Along Veng, the Khmer Rouge's last jungle stronghold, while the movement's one-legged military chief, Ta Mok, passed away last year, almost three decades after they were swept from power by the Vietnamese army in 1979.

The speed with which the judges have moved has taken some by surprise. But it came after a decade of wrangling over the tribunal's ground rules that threatened to derail the process, to the consternation of Cambodians awaiting justice and answers.

The tribunal finally agreed upon differs from other genocide trials around the world as it is a hybrid that will take place under the Cambodian justice system with input from UN-appointed international judges and lawyers.

Duch has been detained since his arrest in May 1999 on war crimes charges issued by the Phnom Penh government. It is believed those charges will now be dropped.

Earlier today he was questioned by the tribunal's senior Cambodian and French investigating judges. A Cambodian and international defence lawyer were present throughout his interrogation.

His Cambodian lawyer, Kar Savuth, said Duch - a maths teacher before joining the revolutionary cause in the 1960s - had no powers to arrest or kill anyone and was only following "verbal orders from the top".

However, during his time in detention he has admitted multiple atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge's disastrous four-year rule that saw a quarter of the population killed in the effort to establish a peasant utopia free of intellectuals. Duch is expected to be a key witness against other Khmer Rouge leaders.

Chum Mey, one of the few Toul Sleng prison survivors, said he was delighted to hear Kaing Guek Eav had been brought to the tribunal for questioning. It turns the tables on the former interrogator responsible for the savage torture of thousands forced to confess to crimes, most often to being CIA spies.

"I want to confront him to ask who gave him the orders to kill the Cambodian people," said the 77-year-old. "I want to hear how he will answer before the court, or if he will just blame everything on the ghosts of Pol Pot and Ta Mok."

The first trials are not expected to begin until next year, more than 18 months into the £28m tribunal's three-year mandate.

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